Ante-Diluvians All

Blast From the Past

John Minto is a serial, professional protester.  We have often wondered whether there is any consistent ideology at work when John shows up to protest his current cause d'jour.  He has had no real job, no career, nor profession.  He would probably describe himself as a "voluntary worker", since he apparently has lived off the tax payer's dime for much of his life--either directly or indirectly. 

But when the causes you espouse are BIG and really, really important all that counts for nothing.  The cause justifies the narcissistic indolence.  But we would be amiss to think that Minto has no ideology at all.  Some would mistakenly think him to be a committed anti-racist, having been at the forefront of protests against apartheid.  In other words, they see Minto as a human rights ideologue, committed to fundamental human civil rights, regardless of ethnicity or colour.  Maybe.  But Minto has not been well known for positive affirmation. 

One would have thought that, after protesting and campaigning against apartheid in South Africa, there would have been a note of triumphalistic celebration in his later career.  Not so.  It appears that he was deeply disappointed in Mandela and the subsequent course of non-racist South Africa.

Pseudo-Hagiography

Already Playing Tricks Upon the Dead

Over recent days the world's Commentariat has been agog over the passing of Nelson Mandela.  We are witnessing hagiography in the making before our very eyes.  We wonder whether he will be proclaimed Messiah in the next week or so. 

There are many things to admire in Mendela's life and career.  There are other things to reject and despise.  Fairness and balance requires that we keep both in perspective.  The adulatory ululations have covered over the bad, making him already a quasi-mythical figure.  We find ourselves reflecting on the contrast when Scripture celebrates great men.  Always, in the case of  Scripture, it is a matter of warts and all.  Their sins, failings, mistakes are up front and centre, along with how they repented of evil, turned to the Light, and became faithful to the Lord.  Think David, Moses, Saul/Paul.  This, we suggest, is the model of honest, real hagiography.  The sad thing, in Mandela's case, is that all the evidence suggests that Mandela was repentant over his youthful wrongs, but those have been studiously ignored in the Commentariat's ululating.  By ignoring the obvious--being too polite and politically correct to talk about it--Mandela's actual remarkable achievements are undermined, being disembodied from humanity and history. 

Mandela's struggle against apartheid led him to advocate violent overthrow of the government and the system.